


Delicate work

by jubah



Category: La Passe-Miroir | The Mirror Visitor - Christelle Dabos
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, UST, fellas is it gay to fall in love with your best friend, post tome 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22693018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jubah/pseuds/jubah
Summary: “Nonsense,” Berenilde repeated, more calmly. “One can love at first sight. Indeed, we never love someone more than when we know the least about them.”A look at Berenilde and Roseline's relationship, in four scenes.
Relationships: Berenilde/Roseline
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Delicate work

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure I understood the ending of tome 4 that well, but nonetheless I wanted to write something for these two, I just love this ship so much...
> 
> (EDIT: In this fic, Berenilde and Roseline are both aged between 40 and 55-ish!)

**Pre-tome 4: Roseline  
**

**1\. Close**

Roseline woke up sweating like a kettle. 

It took her a couple of minutes until she realized it was not Berenilde’s fancy pillows and covers smothering her, but their owner herself. The single-person bed Roseline slept on, which had been placed in Berenilde’s room as soon as she had returned, rocked almost imperceptibly in tandem with the other woman’s breathing - which Roseline knew because she could feel the rise and fall of the body right next to her. Roseline’s back was pressed against the wall, and Berenilde was pressed against her, spooning. Roseline’s face was drowning in a sea of soft, sweet-smelling curls. 

“Berenilde?” She called, worry chasing sleep away. “What’s wrong?”

The silence that followed could almost have fooled her, but raising her neck, she could see the light of the window reflected in Berenilde’s eyes, staring straight at the cradle in which Victoire slept. She repeated her question.

“I’m cold,” Berenilde lied. By now, Roseline could always tell when she did. 

Roseline kicked the covers, pondering what to do. Then she noticed Berenilde’s hand reaching out behind her, in a gesture that could have been considered timid if she thought Berenilde capable of such modesty. Be that as it may: Roseline took Berenilde’s hand, opting to not think about it too much, and rested her arm over the other woman’s waist, which Berenilde interpreted as an invitation to snuggle even closer.

Roseline couldn’t remember the last time she was this close to anyone.

* * *

**2\. I love you dearly**

They were sitting side by side near the fireplace, working in companionable silence, Roseline trying to learn how not to worry about the strange lassitude that had taken over Victoire again. The girl was very unusual, and how not, with a father like that?

But Farouk seemed to finally be taking to his fatherly duties little by little, which Roseline approved of. She told Berenilde as much.

“What was your husband like, Roseline?”, was Berenilde’s abrupt response. Roseline flinched, her fingers nearly crumpling the page she had been restoring. 

“On my paper clips! Where did that come from?” 

Berenilde smiled the way she did when she wanted to be humored. “Just curious.”

Roseline settled back on the chair, brows furrowed. “He was a good man, very calm,” she started, feeling gauche. “We got along well. We worked together for many years.” Roseline hadn’t thought of her husband in many, many moons.

“What did you like about him?” Berenilde continued, unaware of Roseline’s uneasiness.

Roseline hoped against hope that she was not blushing. “What a question! What has gotten into you?” and then, sofly, as a sudden realization hit her, “...could it be you miss your husband?”

Berenilde smiled again and averted her eyes. “Not really.”

Roseline didn’t know what to answer. Nonplussed, eyes glued to book and pencil on her lap, Berenilde added, “I know it is not fair, for me not to miss him. The way he died… I was so desperate, back them. But I avenged him, and I… I know I wanted him, back then. But my life has changed, and I have changed, too. He was a harsh man, and nowadays I enjoy peace. So I cannot sincerely say I wish he were here with us, now”. A pause. Then, very softly, “Do you think I am cold?”

“Well, what did you like about him?” Roseline retorted, ignoring the question she would rather not answer.

Berenilde sighed deeply. “I don’t think I remember anymore.”

The silence that followed was much less comfortable than the first one. Roseline felt that there was something she was supposed to say, but she couldn’t guess what. “Maybe he was too different from you?”

“That would not be an issue for me, if it were the case,” Berenilde said, an amused but genuine smile on her lips, “I can’t imagine someone more different from me than you, dear Roseline, and I love you dearly.”

Roseline was at a loss for words, but Berenilde went on. “No one has ever cared for me like you do. Pray do not get me wrong, I know my boy Thorn cares. And Ophélie, too. Even Farouk, he's trying. But it is different, and you know it.” Berenilde’s eyes were on the book on her lap, but they did not move and she never turned the page. “I am so glad you came back,” she whispered, a light flush coloring her cheeks, and with an emotion in her smile that had Roseline’s heart skip a beat. She started when Berenilde’s gaze met hers, without warning, the full force of it wrapped in such tenderness that Roseline felt compelled to look away in embarrassment. Berenilde did not quit, however. Her hand came to grasp Roseline’s, her eyes searching Roseline’s face. Roseline’s eyes, avoiding Berenilde’s, found the woman’s lap instead, where their fingers were laced together atop Berenilde’s book. 

“May I kiss you?”, Berenilde asked boldly.

Roseline balked. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed to want to run away from her chest. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything, but she did not fight back when Berenilde brought her hand to her lips and kissed it softly. She then leaned over and planted a kiss on Roseline’s cheek. 

Her cheeks tingled.

“Thank you,” said Berenilde, settling back on the chair. She returned to her book, opening it one-handedly, and this time she truly seemed to be reading it.

Her other hand never left Roseline’s. 

* * *

**Post Tome 4: Berenilde**

**3\. Flipside**

Ophélie had come to visit. 

She had arrived abruptly. She played with Victoire, asked some questions about the political situation of the Pole that Berenilde could not really answer, isolated as she had become from such things. The world outside was buzzing, according to Ophélie’s reports, like fields blooming after a long, harsh winter. The structures they had grown up with, which seemed so solid and fixed, were giving in under the weight of the new world Ophélie had brought about.

That Ophélie and Thorn had brought about.

They did not talk of her nephew. Still, his absence was felt in the air, an elephant in the room. When Ophélie was not there, the severity of his situation seemed almost like a nightmare, and not like real life. Seeing the Animist here, however, without him hanging onto her every word… Berenilde did not doubt Ophélie’s visit was cut short for the same reason. Too many memories, here.

She did have faith in Ophélie, however, and she told her as much. The young woman had not changed that much, really, and yet she was completely different: there was a weight on her shoulders that had not been there before, and yet she almost seemed taller and lighter. Berenilde had never thought her looks were her strong suit, and Ophélie had not become beautiful overnight, but there was something imposing about the way she carried herself now. 

Ophélie left after only three days. Roseline was somber afterwards, rereading some of the letters and postals her niece had sent them during her travels, writing letters to their family in Anima. Berenilde left her to her own devices. She had her own ghosts to appease. 

In the evening, after putting Victoire to bed, she was surprised to see Roseline sitting on her bed.

Normally, it was she who would occasionally go to the other woman’s bed to spend the night there. Roseline had never refused her, but had never sought her out either, until now. 

Berenilde was afraid of ruining it with words, so she just laid down and made space for Roseline, who lied down in sequence. On a regular night, Berenilde snuggled until Roseline hugged her from behind; this time, she threw her arm over Roseline, hoping to offer comfort. She didn’t have to wait much.

“She looked so sad,” Roseline whispered.

Berenilde did not reply.

“I do not mean to treat her like a child. And I know you’ve lost your nephew, and she, her husband. And I know she means to find him and if someone can do it, by my bed, it’s her. But she looks so _lonely_.”

Berenilde could hear the tears in Roseline’s strangled voice. Her eyes too were pricking with tears as well. _Thorn, where are you?_

Roseline was crying in earnest, now. Berenilde brought them closer, kissed Roseline’s shoulder and buried her nose on the other woman’s fine hair, which kept a distinct smell of parchment and paper even after so long. She tugged Roseline, making her turn around to face her, and embraced her again. In each others arms, they cried until they fell asleep.

* * *

**4\. Kiss (reprise)**

Archibald had, once upon a time, commented that Roseline was capable of expressing but two emotions: dissatisfaction and outrage. 

To think Berenilde had agreed with him once! Roseline and her niece were maybe harder to read than any descendant of Farouk when they wanted to, apart maybe Thorn. It took time to master the language of their brows and eyes, but Berenilde would like to think she had achieved fluency. To any observers, the look on the Animist’s face when confronted with the sorry state of Farouk’s library of personal notebooks would show disapproval, but Berenilde saw the excitement underneath: the glint in her eyes, the itch in her fingers. 

Roseline was formidable: she liked to be busy, to have projects, to put her mind to work. Berenilde almost resented the fact that the restoration of Farouk’s library had been originally Ophélie’s suggestion, and not hers. 

Ophélie’s uncle, the archivist, was also coming with a small number of trusted Animist to help catalogue and sort these books - under the pretext of visiting, of course. Berenilde was afforded some power as the mother of Farouk’s most recent descendent, but no one really knew what the future held for the family spirit now that everything had changed, and Berenilde figured that the fewer people knew about this project, the better. She herself didn’t have much interest for whatever grudges and fancies Farouk had once noted down on these notebooks, his makeshift memory: she would rather leave the past in the past, if possible. And she suspected Roseline didn’t care much for their content, either. But Ophélie’s face was lively when she talked about the importance of history and transparency, and other ideals foreign to Berenilde, so she acquiesced. While they waited for the Animists’ arrival in a few of days, Victoire played with Farouk’s old toys, and Roseline worked. 

“May I play some music?” She asked, somewhat bored, eyeing a lonely harp abandoned somewhere.

It took three repetitions before Roseline took notice and answered. “Suit yourself,” she had simply replied. 

Time passed. They went home, slept, returned again, and again, and again. 

Berenilde had to be here in order for Roseline to be allowed in, too. But she grew bored faster and faster every time.

“Is it progressing well, your restoration?”

Roseline nodded as absently as ever, her skilled hands gliding over paper. How light and careful the touches, how appraising the gaze. How focused, how intent. 

How _alive_.

“May I see what you’re working on?” Berenilde asked, approaching Roseline. Her skin, which used to have a yellow hue, was a pleasant tan now thanks to the days spent in the sun at the Opal Sands just months ago. 

Roseline nodded again, then started when she saw Berenilde had approached her silently from behind. Berenilde looked at the notebook, but Farouk’s scribbling was indecipherable to her. She focused on Roseline’s hand movements. They were methodical, but not mechanical: there was a caring quality about them when they touched the paper, prodding, encouraging, feeling. It was almost sensual, from this angle. She vaguely wondered if this is how Thorn had felt when he saw Ophélie perform her Reading. She pushed the thought away before it could hurt her. 

“May I touch it?”

Roseline eyed her for an instant which felt way too long. The appraisive gaze of the other woman was turned to her, as if she were a book herself. Berenilde rather liked the attention after feeling ignored for the last few days. She put her hand on top of Roseline’s, and then traced the path she saw before.

“Do it like you do. I want to see if I can feel it.”

They were close enough now that Berenilde felt it when Roseline swallowed. She started moving again, and there was something extremely intimate about feeling the paper come alive under the other woman’s deft fingers. Briefly, Berenilde felt a sting of jealousy of this power which could restore and coddle, while hers could only destroy and coerce.

She rested her head on Roseline’s shoulder, breathing in the smell of soap and parchment that followed the Animist wherever she went. The silence was only perturbed by the sound of their breathing, and the muffled noise of Victoire’s playing. Their fingers ran together along the paper, gently, warmly, bringing Farouk’s scribbles back to life page after page. 

When they reached the last page, Roseline’s hand lingered under hers, on top of the book, and neither dared move. 

She wanted to wait for Roseline to make a move, she really did. But she was a Dragon, after all, and she was too impatient.

“May I kiss you?”, Berenilde whispered.

“Must you ask?”, Roseline answered. Berenilde froze in place, stricken for a moment, when Roseline turned her head back. Her profile was red as a beet, her eyes searching, her lips slightly parted. 

“I-I meant to say, you don’t _have_ to ask,” and before she could continue, barking a laugh of relief and putting two hands on Roseline’s cheeks, Berenilde crashed their lips together.

**Author's Note:**

> Where is Farouk, what is he doing? I just don't know!!!


End file.
